Following our most recent tournament last week, we’d like to recap and discuss the topic of tournament structure. This year, we had set a goal of bringing more tournaments per year in order to provide better support to our PVP community. Within a span of 6 months, we’ll be closing in on our 3rd tournament. Admittedly, we’ve experienced issues with preparation and implementation of tournament processes. We are still learning from every tournament we run and we strive to make improvements upon those issues we learn from.

Official Elsword tournaments have recently all been set in the 2v2 format as opposed to 1v1 and 3v3. We believe there are specific reasons why 2v2 is the most optimal format for Elsword’s competitive PVP scene and we’d like to take the time to explain why.

In 1v1s there are certain classes which prove to excel at 1 on 1 dueling. For example, Ara’s 2nd job Yama Raja who has a passive which can give her a resurrect ability, can use this to her advantage by prolonging a match and coercing the opponent to run out the clock in order to attain victory. On the other end of the spectrum, there are classes like Add’s 2nd job Mastermind who can spend the entire match evading to gather resources and win by executing a few special actives until the time runs out.

Both of these classes are still incredibly strong in 2v2, but in Elsword’s official Spring Tournament 2015, it showcased that classes with an apparent advantage for survivability can be taken out with the help of a partner while choosing to run and evade for resources leaves your partner vulnerable to being taken out.

A 1v1 setting creates an environment where players do not have a partner to fall back on and fewer threats to worry about. Combine the two together and the pace of the match feels much slower.

A great aspect of 2v2 is that it gives players more reason to create action and strategy. If an ally is caught in a combo, he thus is provided the strategic opportunity to create a play by saving them and that in itself is a risk. Decision making and risk taking are much more prominent in a 2v2 setting in comparison to 1v1.

3v3 on the other hand goes in a whole other direction. The nature of a 3v3 environment is very chaotic. With special actives constantly overlapping each other, just adding that 3rd person to a match on each team creates “crazy hard to tell what’s going on” situations. This also becomes a disadvantage for our Livestreamers who cast tournaments, as a 3v3 match would be much more difficult to successfully and accurately cast for an action brawler style PVP game.

With an official tournament, we would like to highlight and reward players for their organized teamwork and individual plays. While 3v3 does consist of both, we feel that it is more apparent in a 2v2 setting.

Overall, we believe 2v2 fits the bill in terms of fun to watch and exciting to play and these are some of our reasons behind making 2v2 the staple mode for Official Elsword Tournaments. That being said we’re curious to know if the community feels the same.